The present invention relates to an automatic bread-making device and, more particularly, an automatic bread-making device capable of automatically carrying out a programmed sequence of steps in a bread-making process which comprises the steps of mixing all the ingredients of bread to form dough, leavening the resulting dough, kneading the dough to remove produced gases, leavening it for shaping, baking the shaped dough, and then cooling the resulting bread.
In recent years, such automatic bread-making devices have been proposed in various Japanese patent applications. For example, Japanese patent laid open No. 60-16534 discloses an automatic bread-making device comprising a housing, a cooking vessel removably arranged therein, a mixing means for kneading all the ingredients of bread in the cooking vessel, a heating means for baking a dough in the vessel, and a sequence control system for controlling the mixing means and heating means to automatically carry out entire steps in the bread-making process in sequence.
Such a device performs a series of steps in the bread-making process by turning a power switch on after placing all the ingredients, such as wheat flour, a leavening agent or yeast, salt and water in the cooking vessel. The ingredients are kneaded by the mixing means to prepare a dough, and the resulting dough is leavened, kneaded to remove produced gas in the dough, leavened to form it into a shape, baked, and then cooled to complete the bread. All these bread-making steps are automatically carried out by means of the control system as it controls the mixing means and heating means in the programmed sequence. Thus, the task for the operator is to place the ingredients in the vessel, making it easy to produce bread at home.
However, the bread-making device of the prior art is controlled by the sequence of control commands issued by the control system, i.e., a fixed program stored in a read only memory of the control system, thus making it impossible for the operator to modify or change the programmed sequence of operations. Since the quality and kind of ingredients such as wheat flour are of prime importance to the finished bread, the optimum sequence program varies with the ingredients used. If any one of the ingredients, for example, wheat flour is replaced for the one recommended by the maker of the bread-making device, it is impossible to produce bread with color, texture and hardness which the user finds agreeable.